Six-output pickups for stereo guitars

Paul writes: "I'm making some guitar pickups to sell that have a separate output for each string. These can be wired to 6 jacks, or to pan pots to a pair of jacks, or to a 7 pin out to a breakout box that has whatever configuration you want, etc. I installed one in an 80s Korean Squier to test it out, with pans to two jacks for stereo. Paul is the man who teaches NYC schoolkids to build guitars and oscillators and jam. Six-way guitar pickups aren't new, of course. Aside from all those midi hexaphonic pickups, Eddie Van Halen had a bonkers Kramer with pannable outputs. If you want one of Paul's pickups, they're $110 from paul at ubertar dot com.
UPDATE: A couple of mp3 demos, best heard on headphones: Hexaphonic 1 Hexaphonic 2.

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

I'm not convinced it won't sound a sixth as good :)

# posted by

Anonymous : 10:22 am

Well, this will either convince "anonymous" or not: The first sample is of the Squier mentioned in the article:
http://www.ubertar.com/creot/stereo2.mp3

And this one is of an Aria pro II with a 7 pin out to a 7 pin in/six 1/4" out breakout box, so each string is panned and processed separately. The panning is binaural, so it sounds best with headphones.
http://www.ubertar.com/creot/hex_demo1.mp3
If it doesn't sound a sixth as good, don't blame the pickup; blame the fact that I'm not Eddie Van Halen.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:16 pm

Some more pics:
http://www.ubertar.com/creot/aria2.jpg

http://www.ubertar.com/creot/aria1.jpg

http://www.ubertar.com/creot/hexaphonic_breakout.jpg

http://www.ubertar.com/creot/hexaphonic_breakout_inside.jpg

http://www.ubertar.com/creot/stereo_strat.jpg

The breakout boxes are easy to DIY, or I can make you one for $50. Musiciansfriend.com has the 7 pin din cables for $10.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:24 pm

one good use for hex pickups is to put a separate fuzz on each pole.
I used to use an Arp Avatar for that.

it has a very "eno-ey" sound, with hex-fuzz chords each note does not cross modulate with the others so the chord sounds true.

# posted by

Simulated Person : 2:21 pm

Why stop at stereo? Why not make it a 5.1 surround sound guitar?

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:04 pm

quote= "Why stop at stereo? Why not make it a 5.1 surround sound guitar?"

The Aria I set up with the 7 pin out to the breakout box does just that... you can send it to six amps, one for each string, and set them in a circle around you if you want. Check out the mp3 sample, in my comment above, with headphones on.

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:34 pm

I'm glad to see your work here -- good luck with it. Convincing guitarists to try new things, to really try them and learn how they work, is a challenge.

I wish I could hear your sound samples, but my browser claims that the site hosting them, ubertar, is a "possible attack site". I will err on the side of caution.

PS: kudos for using a Squier, as well. I love those cheap guitars.

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:46 pm

Mooncaine, thanks for letting me know. Someone (or some bot) added 2kb of code to every index.htm file on my site. The same thing happened recently to other people's sites who share the same host account, but until now, my site was safe. I just went through and replaced all the index.htm files with backups. The mp3 shouldn't have been affected in any case... it was only the index.htm files. I'll take care of google now... I think that's where the alert originated from, so that should clear up soon. It should be safe now, but if you want to wait for the alert to go away, that's totally understandable.

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:08 am

I submitted a request last night for google to re-examine the site, and it's got the all-clear now. Again, thanks for the heads up... it looks like it was only affected for one day.

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:48 pm

Very cool. I'd really like to hear what a simple arpeggio would sound like.
Lots (heh) of possibilities there.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:54 am

RE: arpeggios--
You'll hear some in this sample of the squier.
http://www.ubertar.com/creot/stereo.mp3
You'll also hear how the pickups sound totally clean. One side was through a DI and the other through a mic'd amp.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:24 pm

I submitted a request last night for google to re-examine the site, and it's got the all-clear now.

It certainly has - ubertar.com is now a freshly-formatted blank server :-).

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:40 am

It turned out the host server at hostexcellence got hacked, so the site was down for over a day while they took care of the problem. A lot of people were affected. The site is back up now. I put everything back up as soon as they started allowing ftp again. Please let me know if any files are missing... bad links, etc. It's frustrating getting hacked, and I'm doing all I can, as quickly as I can.

# posted by

ubertar : 3:57 pm

Wow! This really blows me away... I've been talking with Steve Ripley, the guy who made hexaphonic/stereo guitars for Kramer, including the one Eddie Van Halen is holding in the pic, above, and when I logged in to myspace, I saw this comment from him:
"I've seen a lot of guitars. Heck, I've owned a lot of guitars. Those HS Guitars are some of the best I've ever seen (or heard). Good job."
I don't know what to say...
Thanks, Steve!
The link is http://www.myspace.com/ubertar

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:38 am

Very interesting - there is a gap in the market for humbucker-size hex pickups for midi guitar, as Shadow stopped making theirs some years ago and Sound Garage ceased trading last year. Do these pickups have good enough string separation and the right signal level to use in the bridge position to drive (say) an internal Roland GK3?
Adrian Sacco

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:43 am

I'm going to be away until 9/9. So if you don't hear back from me for a while, that's why.

# posted by

ubertar : 5:08 am

I finally got around to putting up a webpage for these; it's http://www.ubertar.com/hexaphonic

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:13 pm

Here's a clickable version of the link (I always forget to do that here): http://www.ubertar.com/hexaphonic

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:26 am

WONDERFUL to see someone making Hex pickups again (other than the Roland and similar options designed to drive Pitch to MIDI and processors like the VG-99). I have a set of Bartolini hex pickups from the 80s which I adore and have installed in an ergonomic guitar. THey sound WONDERFUl! I may buy one of these pickups too, just to check it out!

# posted by

vanceg : 3:27 am